Kerry Wixted

Connecting Nature & Community

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Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice: Meet the Eastern Red Bat

Happy fall! With pumpkin spice season around the corner, I wanted to focus on our pumpkin-colored bat species: the eastern red bat. They are one of 11 species of bats documented in Maryland and are one of the more common ones you can see around Maryland. Eastern red bats are known as ‘tree bats’ since
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Summer Safety Essentials

Now that I am back to summer field work, I figured it would be a good time to go over some of the ways that I keep myself safe. Early in my field workdays, I was quite unprepared for some of the hazards I would experience, even common ones like dehydration. So, I’m going to
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Who Ya Gonna Call? Injured & Orphaned Wildlife

Around mid-April, we get into baby season in Maryland. As a naturalist, I receive countless questions on what to do with sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife. Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources has some information pages on what to do and who to call. Please save this post. First and foremost, Disney has taught us that
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Eastern Coyotes

A tale I often hear is how Maryland and other state wildlife agencies secretly introduced coyotes into their states. Sometimes, the release was done in conjunction with insurance agencies. Sometimes, it was done just because. People will repeat stories of coyotes running around with “State Farm” ear-tags and the secrecy of the project to reduce
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A Frog-filled Night at Kubah

Nestled not too far from Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia is Kubah National Park. While the Park hosts bearded pigs and hornbills, it is best known as a destination for frog-focused night tours as well as containing around 93 species of palms. Over 60 species of frogs are found at Kubah, including one of the smallest
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Secrets of Skunk Cabbage

For many years, I took skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) for granted. It was that stinky plant that dominated wetlands and helped frogs hide from my youthful pursuit. In college, I learned how it was a wetland indicator plant, meaning its presence marked a wetland. It wasn’t until I met Master Naturalist (and later friend!), Siobhan
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Vanilla: a Sweet Flavor with a Sticky History

It would be hard to imagine a modern world without vanilla. Vanilla is one of the world’s most popular scents and flavors. It has been used for centuries, and the demand for vanilla far exceeds natural production. In fact, it is estimated that roughly 18,000 metric tons of vanilla flavor is produced annually, much of
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I Like Big Invertebrates, and I Cannot Lie

How do they say it? Everything is bigger in Borneo! At least, that is how I felt when I saw some of the invertebrate species during my time in Sarawak. Below are a few of the species I could identify. Giant Golden Orbweaver (Nephila pilipes)  I missed out on seeing some of the cool spiny
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Of Poop and Parasites: Rafflesia

In the rainforests of southeast Asia, the largest flower species in the world can be found along the forest floor or climbing up vines: Rafflesia. Rafflesia is a genus of around 41 species of parasitic plants, almost all of which are threatened or endangered. The largest flower ever recorded was just over 4 feet in
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